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Napoli Porosa

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Dalla devozione alla malavita, dalla musica ai giocattoli, la porosità è "la legge ancora tutta da decifrare" attraverso cui, un'immagine dopo l'altra, Walter Benjamin e Asja Lacis comprendono la realtà di Napoli. In questo breve e illuminante saggio scritto a Capri nel 1924, è restituita una città che non può ridursi a quella descritta dalle guide turistiche del tempo. Giorno e notte, infanzia e vecchiaia, miseria e ricchezza non sono più separate, ma ognuna di esse si smussa, si fa sottile e finisce imprevedibilmente per mescolarsi col suo contrario.

80 pages, Paperback

Published April 1, 2020

35 people want to read

About the author

Walter Benjamin

845 books2,073 followers
Walter Bendix Schönflies Benjamin was a German Jewish philosopher, cultural critic, media theorist, and essayist. An eclectic thinker who combined elements of German idealism, Romanticism, Western Marxism, Jewish mysticism, and neo-Kantianism, Benjamin made influential contributions to aesthetic theory, literary criticism, and historical materialism. He was associated with the Frankfurt School and also maintained formative friendships with thinkers such as playwright Bertolt Brecht and Kabbalah scholar Gershom Scholem. He was related to German political theorist and philosopher Hannah Arendt through her first marriage to Benjamin's cousin Günther Anders, though the friendship between Arendt and Benjamin outlasted her marriage to Anders. Both Arendt and Anders were students of Martin Heidegger, whom Benjamin considered a nemesis.
Among Benjamin's best known works are the essays "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" (1935) and "Theses on the Philosophy of History" (1940). His major work as a literary critic included essays on Charles Baudelaire, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Franz Kafka, Karl Kraus, Nikolai Leskov, Marcel Proust, Robert Walser, Trauerspiel and translation theory. He also made major translations into German of the Tableaux Parisiens section of Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du mal and parts of Proust's À la recherche du temps perdu.
Of the hidden principle organizing Walter Benjamin's thought Scholem wrote unequivocally that "Benjamin was a philosopher", while his younger colleagues Arendt and Theodor W. Adorno contend that he was "not a philosopher". Scholem remarked "The peculiar aura of authority emanating from his work tended to incite contradiction". Benjamin himself considered his research to be theological, though he eschewed all recourse to traditionally metaphysical sources of transcendentally revealed authority.
In 1940, at the age of 48, Benjamin died by suicide at Portbou on the French Spanish border while attempting to escape the advance of the Third Reich. Though popular acclaim eluded him during his life, the decades following his death won his work posthumous renown.

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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
Profile Image for Zé Cruz.
10 reviews3 followers
January 26, 2022
Lindíssimo exercício ensaístico sobre a maravilha cidade de Napoli. Descrita de forma breve e concisa mas com uma exatidão que se mantém até aos dias de hoje. Sem dúvida uma cidade muito especial, muito própria e com uma identidade inconfundível.
Recomendo vivamente, o livro e a cidade.
Profile Image for Gianluca.
Author 1 book53 followers
April 20, 2020
Un gioiellino per gli amanti di Napoli!
Profile Image for Francy.
48 reviews6 followers
March 28, 2022
Grazie al fiuto geniale di Raimondo Di Maio, editore e proprietario della libreria napoletana Dante e Descartes (ed editore di "Averno" della Premio Nobel Louise Glück) rivede la luce questo piccolo dattiloscritto, completo delle parti censurate durante il nazismo.

Una cartolina della Napoli del 1924 descritta da Walter Benjamin.
In questo intricato groviglio fatto di architetture, suoni, carne umana, malavita, l'autore ne cerca il bandolo scoprendo poi che non c'e'.
Nondimeno si accorge che quelle mille contraddizioni non si respingono tra loro ma si compenetrano, si assorbono, si fondono rendendo Napoli, La Porosa.

"Porosità significa non solo, o non tanto, l'indole meridionale nell'operare, bensì piuttosto, e soprattutto, l'eterna passione per l'improvvisare".

Titolo e copertina a cura dell'Editore.
Profile Image for Milan Francis.
40 reviews26 followers
March 24, 2024
verzameling essays door Walter Benjamin & Anna "Asja" Lacis:

Napels - Benjamin & Lacis
New Tendencies in Theater - Asja Lacis
A Memoir - Asja Lacis
Program for a Proletarian Children's Theater - Benjamin & Lacis
Profile Image for Sara.
6 reviews
December 18, 2025
"L'esistere, che per l'europeo del nord rappresenta la più privata delle faccende, è qui una questione collettiva."
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews

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